


City Sidewalks, Busy Sidewalks

by triggerswaggiehavoc



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Mentions of Sex, Non-Explicit Sex, perhaps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 20:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8815573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triggerswaggiehavoc/pseuds/triggerswaggiehavoc
Summary: A scarf for the snow, a candle for the dark. Minghao is so far from home, and his hands are freezing cold.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xumyuho](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xumyuho/gifts).



> hello! you've been very down lately which sucks because i think you're so great, and i want you to have this because i want to help you feel a little better and you deserve something just for you. i'm sorry if you hate christmas, and i really hope you like this and it makes you feel something good if only for a second. you're the coolest
> 
>  
> 
> also note: in this fic minghao isn't from his actual home in china as that place is pretty cold. just to clear it up

It’s snowing again today. It never snowed where Minghao grew up, and even now, he still isn’t used to it. He never knows if his coat is going to be warm enough or his socks thick enough, and he never feels like any of it is real, even when the falling flakes sting his bare cheeks and powder the thick black scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. The scarf was a gift from a friend, more of a friend of a friend, said he needed something to cover all that neck once it got a little colder. It was given to him in October even though the snow hadn’t started falling until November, and now he wears it every day.

The snow makes him feel lonely. Maybe it’s just a side effect of the cold, the way a blanket seems to fall over everything and hush the sounds, mute the steps, blur the lights. As he makes his way down the sidewalk, overcrowded with people stomping the fresh white snow to slush under thick rubber soles, he realizes tomorrow will be the first time in his life he spends Christmas on his own. Maybe that’s another reason the snow has him so down. His eyes sting while he keeps weaving through the throng, and he doesn’t remember where he was walking anymore. All he knows is it’s too cold outside and he needs some company.

His friend of a friend lives closer than his actual friend does, though it doesn’t matter today. Junhui’s gone home for the holidays since a week ago, and he hasn’t seen either of them in person since the first week of December. While he walks, he thinks of turning back, marching up the five flights of stairs to his tiny apartment and cranking the heat as high as it’ll go, fixing himself a cup of soup and waiting for the weird feeling in his chest to go away, but his feet keep going forward, toes frozen inside boots that crunch into refreezing chunks of half-melted snow on the edges of the sidewalk. Seems his socks weren’t quite thick enough.

The closer he gets, the more the crowd thins out and the sidewalk widens, broad sheets of snow marred by only a few tracks of footprints. This part of town isn’t as well-traveled, not quite as nice, but the snow paints everything in the same shade and makes it all look equal and beautiful. For a minute, Minghao forgets which building he’s looking for, but he spots a window on the third floor of the next one he passes that’s been cracked and patched back up with duct tape, and his gut pulls him there. The duct tape used to be purple—Minghao remembers it well—but now it’s been covered with red and green.

When he rests his knuckles against the door, he can see they’re pink and chapped from being out in the frigid air, and he wishes he had some gloves to go with the scarf. It stings when he raps his fist on the wood, and he curls into himself a little bit afterward, wincing while he waits for the door to be answered. After a few minutes, it occurs to him that he should’ve called before coming, but he’ll admit that he wasn’t really thinking much. He falls to a squat in front of the door and squeezes his eyes shut, tries to figure out whether he’s ready to go straight back out into the cold yet. The faint tingling in the tips of his toes tells him no.

“Oh.” A voice behind him sends a jolt through his spine even though he recognizes it, and he springs straight to his feet and whips around to find a pair of calm brown eyes staring at him curiously.

Jeonghan is beautiful. That’s the first thing Minghao thought when he saw him even though his mother always told him to focus on what’s inside. He’s still struck by it sometimes, unprompted like when he goes to the grocery store and spots a drink Jeonghan said he liked once, and prompted, like now, when they’re face to face and he’s being looked at with those eyes so warm and glittering. His teeth are picking at a peeling piece of skin on his bright red bottom lip, and he looks like he needs some chapstick. He’s also gotten a haircut, one that makes him look softer and more familiar. A hesitant smile pulls at his lips when he brushes his hair back with the hand that isn’t occupied holding an overfull bag of groceries.

“You’re fast,” he says, and Minghao’s caught off guard. It’s not the question he was expecting.

“I’m fast?” he asks. Jeonghan tries to waddle past him while he digs his key out of his pocket, shoves it into the keyhole and yanks it around to get the door open. He still hasn’t talked to the landlord about the door, Minghao guesses.

“Didn’t you get my text?” Minghao reaches for the phone in his pocket and pulls it out uncertainly, numb fingers struggling to get it unlocked. There’s a text from Jeonghan, twenty minutes ago, asking if he’d like to come over later. Minghao stares at the contact picture next to the message, one Jeonghan took himself on Minghao’s birthday in a cream sweater that fit him well. Looks like his coat is thick enough to keep him from feeling his phone’s vibrations. “But you’re here though,” he says with a smile, jerking the door open, “so maybe you were just thinking about me.” _Maybe_ , Minghao thinks. “Come on inside.”

He’s only been here one other time, and all he remembers from last time is that Jeonghan likes to leave his laundry all over the place. This time, it’s much tidier, but he does notice that there are a lot more candles out on the tables and counters than any one person probably needs to have in their apartment, all different variations on the same few scents and all unlit. He slides into a stool at the counter while Jeonghan sets his groceries down and shrugs off his coat. He’s wearing the same cream sweater he has on in the contact picture on Minghao’s phone. Minghao thinks it’s funny how things line up like that sometimes.

“Still wearing that scarf?” Jeonghan asks mischievously when he turns around to put the kettle on the stove. How strange to comment on something like that when you aren’t looking. The stove makes a dubious ticking noise while the burner heats up, a shuddering mix between a clock and a heartbeat. “I hope it’s treating you well.”

“I wear it every day,” Minghao confesses plainly, eyes boring into a nearby candle. _Peppermint Delight_ , the label reads. He figures it probably doesn’t smell half as good as it looks, but given the sheer number of candles he can spot from where he sits, that probably wasn’t something Jeonghan took into account when buying them.

“Really?” He swivels around with the express intent of offering a dazzling grin and lets his eyes slide down to Minghao’s neck. His cheeks are hot when they linger there, like they’d melt any snowflakes before they even hit. Jeonghan’s gaze slides back up a little, but not quite far enough. Lips. Minghao chews at one self-consciously, but Jeonghan doesn’t look away. “It looks good on you,” he drawls, closer to a hum than words, and finally lifts his eyes to meet Minghao’s. “I wasn’t sure if it would be enough for your neck.”

“My neck isn’t that long,” he says grumpily. He juts out his bottom lip in a pout without meaning to, and Jeonghan’s attention flits back to his mouth for a brief moment; brief, but still far too long. His eyes crinkle in a broad grin.

“But it is,” he counters sweetly, turning back around. “Long and beautiful.” Minghao’s face burns again, and this time, so do his neck and ears. He wants the scarf off now, but he keeps it on.

For a while, the only sound is the ticking of the stove and the sizzling noise as the water in the kettle heats up. Minghao’s always been stronger once the conversation is going than when he’s trying to get one started, so he does nothing but keep his mouth shut and watch silently as Jeonghan pulls two identical green mugs out of the cupboard and set them on the counter. He rummages through a drawer for the tea bags, and Minghao’s heard from Junhui that he makes an awful cup of tea, but he’s still holding onto his final shreds of hope when he watches the boiling water cascade recklessly into each mug. It warms his hands back up when he finally wraps his fingers around it.

“This is terrible,” he mutters after the first sip, and Jeonghan’s face tints a combination of embarrassment and offense that doesn’t go much deeper than the skin.

“So rude,” he tuts. “After I’ve been so kind and invited you over.”

Minghao blinks slowly a few times while he suffers through another sip. Jeonghan had invited him over, hadn’t he? He forgot all about that, and now that he remembers, he’d like to ask why, though he’s not quite sure he wants to know why. Jeonghan is kind of weird and enigmatic, says things sometimes that Minghao doesn’t really understand, does things that he can’t interpret. He’s only met him a handful of handfuls of times, and when he takes his third sip of tea, it sinks in that this is the first time they’ve ever met without Junhui being there. Peering over his mug, he starts carefully formulating a question with the intake of his fourth sip. The more he drinks, the better it tastes.

“Did you know I was still in town?” is what he settles on. There’s a sort of lazy half smile that Jeonghan’s been known to do that makes Minghao’s stomach feel different and foreign in his body, and he’s doing it now. His fingers start to sting where they press more tightly to the mug clutched within them.

“Junhui told me,” he explains, taking a drink from his own cup and scrunching his nose in protest at the flavor. “He told me you couldn’t make it home this year, and you seem like the type to get lonely.”

“I don’t get lonely,” Minghao lies.

“But you came to see me of your own accord, didn’t you?” Another sip. Another scrunch.

“I guess I did,” he sighs. Jeonghan smiles like it’s a victory and levels his gaze, not wavering an inch from Minghao’s face. It’s observant, studious almost, like he’s trying to take note of everything for later, and Minghao can feel that he’s too red.

The last time they saw each other, they kissed, just for a second. Jeonghan was intoxicated and Junhui was somewhere else taking a phone call, and while Minghao is sure Jeonghan remembers, he doesn’t know how to feel that he hasn’t mentioned it. Something feels unusual, and the way he’s being stared down only augments it, but he keeps staring back. Once his cup is empty, he decides the scarf really needs to come off, and Jeonghan looks satisfied once he sees it balled up atop the counter.

“Care to help me bake some cookies?” he asks, and Minghao’s mouth isn’t halfway toward a response before he’s pulling cookie dough out of his plastic bag and fishing for a baking tray from the lower cabinets.

It’s plain to see that Jeonghan does not need any help in the kitchen; the dough is premade, and all he really has to do is grease the sheets and plop little balls down onto them. Even so, if Minghao even looks like he’s about to stop helping, Jeonghan insists he needs him so the cookies turn out okay. “You’re a good luck charm,” he says, running his hand over the back of Minghao’s neck and threading his fingers in the ends of his hair for just a second before going back to his task. Minghao wants to tell him he should wash his hands, but his face is hot and his throat is dry, so he just keeps rolling the dough into spheres in silence.

Once the tray is baking away in the oven, Jeonghan suggests they watch a movie to pass the time, then coaxes Minghao gently but insistently onto the couch beside him and flicks the television on. He’s close, too close, and Minghao can smell the tea on his breath and feel the knobs in his knuckles and hear the soft whistle through his nose every time he breathes. The crook of his elbow comes up slowly, slowly, and then there’s an arm around his back, hand at the end resting lightly against where his jeans are bunching at his thigh. Breath goes stale in his lungs.

“You can relax,” Jeonghan says with a slight squeeze that isn’t at all relaxing. “You can take off your coat, too. Act like you’re going to stay awhile.”

“The cookies are going to burn,” is all he manages. Jeonghan chuckles softly. It’s gentle on his ears.

“They won’t burn,” he promises. “I set a timer.” Minghao glances over hesitantly, and Jeonghan’s staring at his mouth again. He looks to his eyes lazily, like he doesn’t care if Minghao catches him. He probably doesn’t. Minghao isn’t sure how he feels about it.

“You got a haircut,” he finally points out, because Jeonghan’s eyes are pretty and sparkling and expectant and he doesn’t know what else to say.

“Yeah,” he agrees instead of mentioning what an obvious thing that is to say. “Do you like it?”

It’s not really a loaded question, but it certainly feels like one. Yes, he does like it, but he knows that’s what Jeonghan wants him to say even if he isn’t fully sure why Jeonghan wants him to say it, even if he doesn’t really know whether there are implications of liking his haircut that branch farther than just hair. There’s so much he doesn’t know, and he can see through the window that it’s getting too dark outside for him to head home. Snow is still falling.

“It looks good,” Minghao says at length. Jeonghan’s lips part to make way for words, but the sound of his timer alerting stops them short. When he rises to get the cookies out of the oven, Minghao finally slips his coat off and tosses it over the arm of the couch. He’s still too warm.

The smell fills the apartment the second the oven door falls open, so much it almost makes Minghao dizzy. It’s been such a long time since he smelled cookies or anything freshly baked, and he’d forgotten how much stronger it is than the dampened scent of boxed confections at the grocery store. It pulls him off the cushions and to his feet, guides him into the kitchen to see Jeonghan pulling the tray out with one hand protected by a too-thin potholder. Just as he’s getting it set down on the stovetop, he spies Minghao cautiously approaching and loses focus for half a second to grin at him. Minghao watches the pad of his index finger slip right over the worn end of the potholder and press onto the scalding bottom of the tray.

“Great,” he hisses, pulling his hand back with haste and rushing to the sink. He holds his finger steady under a stream of cold water for a solid minute before turning to Minghao with a calm smile and saying, “Would you get the cookies onto a cooling rack? The spatula’s in the first drawer, and I think the rack is in the cabinet right under.”

Minghao nods obediently, because it was kind of his fault, wasn’t it? He didn’t make Jeonghan turn his head, but he would’ve had no reason to if Minghao had just stayed on the couch in the first place. It’s something of a conundrum, both his fault and not, though Jeonghan probably isn’t thinking of it that way. Minghao slides the cookies from the tray one by one, eyes on the window. It’s too dark now for him to see any flakes as they drift downward, but he trusts that snow is still falling.

Jeonghan pulls his hand out from under the sink with a strained sigh after Minghao’s cleared the entire baking tray, brow creased in a new way Minghao’s never seen. Somehow, it still suits him. When he turns his attention back to Minghao, it washes off his face in an instant, and it makes Minghao gulp.

“Sorry,” he says. Jeonghan raises his eyebrows.

“Why? It’s not your fault,” he says coolly. Minghao’s shoulders relax visibly. “But if you really feel bad, you can kiss it better.” And they tense right back up.

It’s just a joke. It is so obviously a joke, and Minghao knows it’s a joke, but Jeonghan offers his hand despite that, forefinger proudly extended, and then he thinks maybe it isn’t a joke and maybe he should kiss it better. He flattens his mouth into a perplexed line and fixes his eyes on the tip of Jeonghan’s finger in focus. He’s so focused that he doesn’t notice Jeonghan coming closer until his nose is just inches away.

“I’m just joking. You don’t have to kiss my finger,” he says gently, patting Minghao’s chest. One fingertip is just a little hotter than all the rest. He opens a drawer and pulls out a lone bandage, peels it out of its wrapper and onto his finger. “I just need some new potholders or oven mitts or something.”

“I’ll get you some,” Minghao says without thinking. The look Jeonghan sends him is neither cold nor warm, just curious.

“As a Christmas gift?” he asks. “That’s sweet. I’ll get you something, too.” His thumb traces thoughtfully over his chin, smooth circles ghosting over the soft skin. “I guess they’ll both be late, though.”

“You already got me a scarf,” Minghao argues, but Jeonghan shakes his head, smiles, leans a little closer.

“But that wasn’t for Christmas. I just wanted you to have one.” Minghao sucks in a breath. He won’t ask why even if he wants to know. He’s tired of always asking questions and tired of never understanding answers. Through the window, he can see that it’s pitch black.

“I should go soon,” he says, and Jeonghan’s jaw goes slack as he stares back.

“Absolutely not.” His voice is firm, surprisingly so, and Minghao’s eyes widen just marginally. “You’ve barely been here for any time at all, you haven’t even had a cookie, it’s way too dark for you to walk all that way back, and I’m not letting you wake up alone on Christmas morning.” Minghao is gradually connecting the dots in his head, but Jeonghan hijacks the pen and traces through the rest of them with a quick ease and a soft voice. “I’d like you to stay the night.”

“You would?” Jeonghan nods easily, hair swishing slightly over his ears. That cut really does look nice on him.

“That was my plan from the start.” He circles behind Minghao and pats him on the back, ushering him toward the couch again. “Now sit down and enjoy yourself.”

It’s strange that he feels so at home when nothing is like home at all. The way Jeonghan’s arm wraps loosely around his back isn’t helping him relax, but while it doesn’t feel like family, it also doesn’t feel wrong. Whatever movie is playing on the TV isn’t holding his attention much; it’s the snow he can’t see still falling he’s thinking about. Even with all the snow they never used to get back home, the white Christmas he’s never had, he doesn’t feel far at all. Jeonghan taps an unusual version of Jingle Bells on the part of his thigh where his hand is resting. Minghao’s brain tells him it’s strange, but his quickening heartrate tells him it’s nice.

Dinner is a pizza from Jeonghan’s freezer that’s coated in a layer of ice so thick Minghao’s inclined not to trust it, but Jeonghan says it’s all he has, and the news stations say no one is delivering in this kind of snow. He takes care of oven transactions this time to prevent further injury, and it’s even more glaring just how inadequate the measly potholder is when he’s the one who has to use it. His whole hand feels like it might burst into flames when he struggles to lift the pizza out of the oven and set it down on the counter. Jeonghan hums when he sets to cutting it into pieces with the pizza slicer, an arrhythmic tune Minghao feels like he should know even though it’s probably nothing.

“I really do need to get you some oven mitts,” he asserts. Jeonghan smiles at the pizza while he slices it, careful and slow. “My hand is on fire.”

It’s easy, so easy, so quick and so practiced, the way Jeonghan’s hand abandons its task to find Minghao’s right away. His grip is light and soft, hands strong but smooth, when his fingers slide between Minghao’s and linger. His thumb taps the back of Minghao’s hand one, two, three times before he pulls his own hand back and finishes turning the pizza from one to eight.

“Yeah,” he agrees, “your hand is really hot.” Two paper plates hit the countertop unceremoniously with soft clacks, and Jeonghan hands one to Minghao. “But what should I get you?”

“You could give me a candle,” he suggests, eyeing a cluster on the far end of the counter. Jeonghan’s eyes turn curious, corners of his lips tug up whimsically.

“You like candles?” he asks uncertainly. “I didn’t have you pegged the candle-loving type.”

“Well, you just have a lot,” he begins, “so you wouldn’t have to buy one.” Jeonghan scans the room lazily to take stock of the candle situation.

“I get the feeling you’re implying I have too many candles,” he ventures, “but the thing is, you never know when there’ll be a power outage. Or a romantic dinner.” Something sparks behind his eyes, deep in the catacombs of his brain. “Let’s light some.”

The way the miniscule flames dance around vivaciously in the three candles Jeonghan lights on the coffee table in front of the sofa is mesmerizing; Minghao can’t help but stare at them while they flicker and twist behind glass rims. They have the opposite effect of the snow, make him feel comfortable and whole. Somehow, they look like Jeonghan’s eyes.

Even after the pizza is long gone and Jeonghan’s gathered the cookies onto a plate and placed them on the coffee table, the candles stay lit, their scents mingling strangely in the air until they’ve formed a cohesive blend of cinnamon and peppermint and pine that almost fits Jeonghan perfectly. The cookies are still soft when he takes a bite of one, still a little warm despite how long they’ve been sitting, and he can’t figure out why, but he thinks he might cry. A sudden lump in his throat makes it hard to swallow, but he forces it down.

Maybe Jeonghan notices. Without warning, his fingers are combing through Minghao’s hair, pushing it back to let the cold air hit his forehead, sliding over his head and down through the thinner hairs behind his ears, hitting his neck and lingering there. His fingertips burn everywhere they touch, deep and shallow, resting just heavily enough on Minghao’s skin that he can’t focus on anything else. When he finally turns to look, Jeonghan is staring again, but not at his eyes.

His lips. Why is it that Jeonghan’s gaze seems to be so constantly fixed on them? Minghao starts to chew at one again, that nervous habit, and this time, Jeonghan meets his eyes, calm smile on his face. He’s breathtaking from so close, the way his eyes reflect everything: the movie on the TV screen, the flames of the candles, the lights on the shoddy little tree shoved into the corner. He hums a short beat, a wordless question, and Minghao finds himself accidentally taking a glance at Jeonghan’s lips for just a second. They were soft, he recalls.

“Yes?” Jeonghan asks, aloud in words this time, calling Minghao’s attention back. He gulps because he has to.

“Um,” he begins softly, one syllable to test the waters. The time for questions has come. “Why do you…” Wrong. “The last time we saw each other, you, uh.” Words are so hard when Jeonghan is looking back at him like that.

“I, uh, what?” He blinks and bats his eyelashes while he does, pretty and graceful and long.

“Kissed me?” He wets his lips. “Do you remember?”

“I remember.” The hand on Minghao’s neck gets slightly heavier, just barely warmer. A thumb strokes slowly over the base of his hair, and it tickles, but Minghao can’t laugh.

“Did you do it on purpose?” he asks. Jeonghan lets a reedy chuckle slip through his lips.

“I was tipsy, not delirious.” He leans in a little closer. His lips are so pink when he says, “I knew what I was doing.”

“Oh.” Minghao had figured as much, but a part of him was still clinging to a subdued belief that maybe he hadn’t, maybe he’d mistaken Minghao for someone else, maybe he’d forgotten where he was. Jeonghan takes another short look at Minghao’s mouth before he leans in and covers it with his own.

His lips are just as chapped as they looked, rough and dry, but still soft and gentle like he remembers. He tastes like chocolate chip cookies and somehow the cinnamon scent in the air, and the spot on the back of Minghao’s neck where his hand is touching is so much hotter than he could ever hope a scarf would make it. It’s the same as last time, but it’s different, too. The other time, he’d felt warm but confused, lost in a place he already knew; now, he feels like he’s been given a gift or maybe that he is one, like the snow can’t touch him if it’s even still falling, like his chest is a fireplace and Jeonghan is a fire and they’re making something together that can’t be made alone. It doesn’t make any sense, but he feels it.

“Sorry,” Jeonghan mutters unapologetically when he pulls away, “but I’ve been wanting to do that since I saw you outside.” Minghao hums and presses a finger to his own lips gingerly. He can feel how hot his cheeks are, like summers back home when he used to wish he knew what snow was like.

“You need some chapstick,” is all he says. Jeonghan quirks an eyebrow.

“Will you buy me some, then?”

“Sure.” A weighted pause.

“It doesn’t seem like you’re rejecting my advances,” he muses carefully, carding through Minghao’s hair again.

“I’m not, I guess,” Minghao says after a moment’s thought. “I think I might like you a lot.” Jeonghan levels his gaze, intent and observant.

“Is that so?”

“Yeah.” He smiles impishly.

“In that case,” he begins, “what are the chances I could get you in bed with me?”

“Now?” He glances at the clock on the wall dubiously, eyebrows lowered. “It’s still kind of early.”

“Beds are good for more than just sleeping,” he almost sings, light and lilting. There he goes again, taking Minghao’s hand in his and guiding it through all the dots.

“You’re inviting me to have sex with you?”

“Only if you want to,” he says with a smirk, then, “Will you think I’m a sleaze if I tell you that’s part of why I invited you over?”

“Yes.” Jeonghan snorts. “And here I thought you were concerned about me being lonely.”

“I am,” he says, sliding his hand from the back of Minghao’s neck and down his chest, past his hips and along to his thigh. It lights fires everywhere it touches. “But I’m also very attracted to you.” His fingers tap another arrhythmic beat on Minghao’s jeans that seems like it ought to be familiar.

“You really are a sleaze,” he breathes out, and Jeonghan snickers quietly.

“I’m not gonna kick you out if you say no. Besides,” he pushes his face closer, stares into Minghao’s eyes from under a swoop of dark hair, “you just said you _like_ me, so I can’t be that bad.” The corners of Minghao’s lips drift upward despite his sigh.

“And you won’t be upset if I say no?” he asks. Jeonghan displays a proud thumbs up with the hand that’s not drawing sunspots on his leg.

“No hard feelings. I’m not that terrible.” And he’s looking at Minghao’s lips again. It makes his cheeks go cherry red the way he doesn’t even try to disguise it. “Though if this is you saying no, I’d like to kiss you one more time.” Minghao is tired of words. He leans in close and lets his lips do the talking.

Jeonghan’s body is just as pretty as his face, but in a different way, realer and more tangible, the center pieces to a puzzle where he’s got the outline already built. His eyes and hands see everything in equal measures, and Jeonghan returns each gesture in kind, a slow game of hide and seek where no one’s been concealed. Jeonghan feels like heat and cold at once, snow and fire, candle flames and crystal flakes. He shudders when Minghao drags his palms over his shoulders.

“Jesus,” he groans, “your hands are so dry.”

“Uh, sorry.” He goes to take his hands back, but Jeonghan presses them back down with his own, fingers worrying the coarse skin stretched over his knuckles.

“It’s fine,” he promises with a thin smile and half-lidded eyes. “You just need some… oh, wait. I’ll get you some gloves. You don’t have any, right?”

“No,” Minghao admits.

“Mmm, good.” His lips find the base of Minghao’s neck in a wet kiss, trace a path to his jaw with another host of them, soft and quick. He mumbles into Minghao’s skin when he speaks again. “Glad I have that sorted out.”

The sheets are soft and cool against his back, smell vaguely of peppermint. They feel like home even though he couldn’t be less home, and so does Jeonghan’s thick duvet when it’s draped over him, heavy and warm on his heaving chest. So do Jeonghan’s eyes when they look at him, his hand when it sifts back through his hair. So does Jeonghan’s smile when he offers it as his eyes slide closed, hand patting another arrhythmic beat on Minghao’s stomach until he drifts to sleep.

It’s snowing again when he wakes up in the morning, or maybe it’s that it never stopped in the first place. He climbs out of bed to watch it coat the sidewalks from the window, the white Christmas he’s never known before, shivering in socks with a blanket draped over his shoulders and the buzz of the underperforming heater in his ear. Time stops and starts while he watches, endless loops of the same snowflakes falling onto the same strained branches and sinking into the same snowbanks over and over and over again. A muffled hum comes from behind him, followed by a series of hushed creaks in the floorboards. He still hasn’t talked to his landlord about the floor, Minghao guesses.

“Merry Christmas,” Jeonghan says groggily, creeping under the blanket. He tucks his chin into the crook of Minghao’s neck like it’s what ought to be done, and Minghao presses his ear to the top of Jeonghan’s head in return because it is what ought to be done.

“Merry Christmas.”

“Admiring the snow?” he asks. Minghao hums a soft note that reminds him of somewhere he’s been.

“It’s pretty,” Minghao tells him. Toes wiggle their way between his ankles to forge a path for a foot that slides through and plants itself firmly between his own, nudges into the arches lightly.

“Your feet are cold,” Jeonghan mumbles quietly, eyes still forward out the window. The sky is white that fades to gray, a washed out rainbow that stretches forever.

“My socks are too thin.” A low laugh travels through his skin and his muscles, straight to his skeleton, right into his core.

“I’ll get you some thicker ones.” Minghao snorts.

“Scarf, gloves, socks. What’s next, long johns?”

“If you want them.” Arms slip around Minghao’s waist. They’re warm, but the hands attached to them are cold. “I’ll make sure to keep you warm.”

Minghao’s heartbeat catches on something, and he feels it blooming in his chest like a single flower in a field of white. Home is warm; he knows it from experience, from those countless days that he spent living there, from those innumerable hugs his mother used to give him and the nights he couldn’t get cool enough to fall asleep. Here is not home, but it doesn’t always have to be so cold. Jeonghan tugs backward lazily with his whole body, pulling Minghao onto his heels.

“Let’s go back to bed,” he says around a yawn. His voice is a bread crumb trail back home, and Minghao follows it.

**Author's Note:**

> i love christmas and i love jeonghao and they deserve a christmas together so i gave them one. i hope u liked this if u read it and i hope ur getting a real kick out of the author's note if that's all you're choosing to read. christmas makes me emo so i was basically crying all week writing this and i hope every one of you who reads it loves it just as much as i do. unofficially sponsored by silver bells (thanks bing crosby). as always, feedback is greatly appreciated, and thank you so much for reading!


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